The Skills Tech Leaders Often Undervalue with Kara Schlageter

Women in Tech Trailblazers: Authenticity Unleashed · Aug 20, 2026 · 35m

You keep exceeding expectations, but the promotion never comes. Then a boss asks, “Why are you in such a hurry?” Kara Schlageter did, and years later she figured out what that question really meant. It made her start questioning who gets encouraged to step up, and who gets told to wait.

Kara is the Chief Information Security Officer at Discovery Education, with 25 years leading cybersecurity and enterprise risk. She got there without a computer science degree. Her background is HR and change management, and she’s convinced those are the skills that made her good at it.

She started asking her…